The Daily Plan-it / Dean of Students Blog, Columbia J-school

November 19, 2007

MEMO: Spring 2008 Curriculum

Filed under: Schedule, Part-time Students, Major memos, M.S. Program, FAQ, Registration, Spring Prep

Please note that this document is updated regularly! Last updated 12/13, 2:48 p.m.

12/13/2007 Updates

  • Producing a Magazine B with Jim Kelly will meet on Fridays, 2:30-5:30 pm

12/12/2007 Updates

  • Second section of Business Reporting added - Prof. Paul Ingrassia

11/27/2007 Updates

  • Literary Journalism will meet Fridays, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

11/26/2007 Updates

  • Christopher Lehmann-Haupt will teach the Literary Journalism workshop
  • Elizabeth Pochoda will teach the Magazine Editing elective

M.S. Spring 2008 Curriculum Guide

TO: All M.S. Students
FROM: David A. Klatell, Vice Dean
RE: Spring Curriculum

Here is the program of instruction for the spring term. Full-time M.S. students are required to take a 6-credit Reporting and Writing Seminar, a 6-credit Media Workshop, the Master’s Project and fulfill the requirement for a 3-credit journalism elective or an approved 3-credit graduate course outside the school.

In addition, all full-time magazine concentrators will be automatically enrolled the Delacorte Evening Lecture Series (one-half credit). Part-time students concentrating in magazine may elect to take the lecture series in spring 2008 or 2009.

Students should read this material thoroughly and, after discussing the options with their advisers and the various instructors, rank their preferences on the online ballot (available as of November 21, 7:00 a.m. from the DOS Blog).

Enrollment in classes may be subject to the consent of instructors and most course enrollments are necessarily limited. As a result, some students may be assigned to classes that may not be among their top three picks. This is done as fairly and equitably as possible. If circumstances warrant, it may be possible to add a second section for certain classes, with different instructors. However, we cannot guarantee that we will add sections to any course, no matter the demand.

The curriculum reflects the best judgment of the faculty and administration, based on our many years of experience, and is not a popularity contest. We reserve the right to add, delete or move courses (though we try to keep this to a minimum) and sometimes have to change instructors if schedule conflicts become intractable. Students are required to rank their preferences for seminars, workshops, and electives.

Students should be aware that evaluations of courses by students in previous years are available for your perusal; they are available at www.columbia.edu/cu/journalism/evaluations/.

The on-line ballot will be activated at 7:00 a.m., November 21. Your completed ballot must be submitted on line no later than November 28, 7 a.m. All ballots received during this time will be considered equal – this is not a “first-come, first-served” process.

The Journalism School’s spring semester begins Tuesday, January 22, when the first draft of Master’s Projects must be submitted to your adviser by 10 a.m. Students completing broadcast or new media projects should consult with their advisers regarding the format of the first draft. Deadlines for subsequent master’s drafts have been set for February 25 and March 24, both days at 10 a.m. You will receive detailed instructions as those dates grow closer.

Please Note: Wednesday, January 23 there will be a full-day of mandatory programming for full-time M.S. students; all others are welcome. Workshops begin Thursday, January 24 or Friday, January 25. Seminars begin either Monday, January 28 or Tuesday, January 29. Journalism School electives start Wednesday, January 30.

Classes taught elsewhere in the University begin the week of January 22 (except for Law & Business School courses which may begin earlier). Be sure to check with your instructors for exact dates and times.

Required courses for full-time students:
1. Advanced Reporting and Writing Seminars (J6002y), 6 credits
2. Media Workshops (J6011y), 6 credits
3. Master’s Project II (J6041y), 3 credits
4. Spring term electives (J6010y), 3 credits

How a Week Looks in the Spring:

  • Monday and Tuesday: Reporting and writing Seminars
  • Wednesday: Most Electives and time for Master’s Projects
  • Thursday and Friday: Most Workshops
  • Saturday and Sunday: Some Electives and Workshops

Note: Many courses require special class meetings (field trips, editorial meetings, etc.) in addition to the listed class time. All students, particularly those in the part-time program, should check with the faculty to ascertain if their course has such additional requirements. Many faculty members have posted these on the school web site, linked to their name on the faculty page or to the course description in this document.

Advanced Reporting and Writing Seminars
J6002y (6 credits)
The disciplines of reporting and writing are structured around specialized subject areas or style techniques. These seminars usually require two full days each week on Monday and Tuesday - you should carefully check the schedule of each course by consulting the faculty or their class schedules posted on the web site.
They are listed below with the instructors (see later pages for fuller course descriptions). Because accommodating all first choices is unlikely, students must indicate six choices. In filling out the ballots, students should list specific seminars in order of their preferences.
Note: Admission to some seminars requires the instructor’s approval in advance (see course descriptions below). If you have been selected by Judith Crist, Sam Freedman, or Ari Goldman you will be asked to indicate so on your ballot. These classes will be filled prior to the ballot, so if you have not been pre-selected by the professor, you will not be able to submit a ballot requesting those classes.

All professors are allowed to select 10 of the students who ballot for their class as a first choice; the remaining seats are filled by the Dean of Students office in a manner that is intended to equalize students’ success in getting at least some of their first-choice classes.

The Seminars (J6002y):

Workshops
J6011y (6 credits):
Media workshops include a number of options: broadcast (TV — Nightly News, Documentary, Magazine Production, and Radio), newspaper (Bronx Beat, Columbia News Service), magazine (Producing a Magazine, Magazine Writing, Literary Journalism) and New Media. Students devote at least two days each week, usually Thursday and Friday, to the workshop. Note: schedules vary widely, so you should check with the faculty member for details or his/her posting on the web site.

All professors allowed to select 10 of the students who ballot for their class as a first choice; the remaining seats are filled by the Dean of Students office in a manner that is intended to equalize students’ success in getting at least some of their first-choice classes.

The Workshops (J6011y)

Master’s Project II
J6041y (3 credits) — a continuation of Journalism J6040x

Master’s Project Deadlines:

  • Jan. 22: First draft of all Master’s Projects (for audio/video projects, the “work cut”) will be handed in to your advisor by 10 a.m.
  • Feb. 25: Second draft of all Projects (for video projects, a “rough cut”) will be handed in to your advisor by 10 a.m.
  • Mar. 24: Final versions of all Projects handed to the Academic Dean’s office, in Room 701, by 10 a.m. No changes are allowed after this deadline. This copy is ultimately filed in the library.

Note: These deadlines are strict and must be met. Your adviser may require additional deadlines and drafts.

Electives
6014y (3 credits)
All full-time M.S. students are required to take an elective for at least three credits at the graduate level in the spring term — either inside or outside the school. Most Journalism electives meet once a week for lectures and/or seminar discussions, and require reading as well as written assignments. Outside electives must be approved by the Dean of Students office.

For outside course information, please see: http://snipurl.com/1tn6z

The Electives (6014y)

Delacorte Evening Lecture Series
J6050y (1/2 credit)
Thursday 7pm - 8:30 p.m.
FT magazine concentrators are automatically enrolled in the Delacorte Magazine Lectures, to be offered Thursday evenings 7-8:30 p.m. from February 7 through April 24. All other students are invited to attend. Part-time students concentrating in magazine may elect to take the Lecture Series in spring 2008 or 2009.

InternshipJ6099y (1/2 credit, optional)
Internships must be pre-approved by the Office of Career Services and the Dean of Students office. A student who undertakes an internship at a media organization can earn an additional academic one-half credit if the work consists of serious journalistic enterprise. At the conclusion of the internship, the student must submit a written description of what he or she has accomplished and learned in the internship, and an official of the media company must send a separate letter corroborating that and evaluating the student’s performance.

SEE COURSE DESCRIPTIONS AFTER THE JUMP.

Course Descriptions
Following are descriptions of the reporting/writing Seminars, the media Workshops, the Elective courses, and the skills classes in the school. You may request a syllabus from the professors, or consult those posted on the school web site. For outside courses, see http://snipurl.com/1tn6z.

If a course fails to attract a sufficient number of students, the Dean reserves the right to cancel it. All course changes are subject to the approval of the Vice Dean’s office.

The Seminars
J6002y (6 credits)
Please note: full-time students are expected to devote all day Monday and Tuesday to working on their Seminar. The times listed below indicate only the group meetings of these courses.

Book Writing
Sam Freedman
Tuesday, 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. (Note: Application class)
This seminar teaches students to prepare a book proposal, including an overview essay and a sample chapter, both at least 4,000 words long. Each student must enter the class with either sufficient material from elsewhere or an idea that can be researched in the New York area. Students will not be permitted to use their Master’s Project for this seminar. Coursework ranges from intensive study of literary non-fiction and journalistic fiction, with related writing assignments on a weekly basis, to instruction in the techniques of reporting and writing extended narrative, and of producing a book proposal. Guest speakers from the publishing industry appear frequently. Enrollment limited, with approval of instructor

Business and Economic Reporting
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn
Tuesday, 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Show me the money! That’s what students will learn to do for readers in this Business and Economic Journalism course designed to teach how to generate, research, report, write and edit cogent business stories. Learn how to use numbers effectively and sparingly to explain how business impacts peoples’ daily lives. Gain an understanding and appreciation for how publicly traded and privately held companies are structured, how and where reporters may find the documents to learn how the companies are doing and how such ‘bottoms up’ data provides clues to the health of the overall economy. We will examine the stock and bonds markets, some aspects of personal finance and major economic trends that journalists can expect to cover.

Covering Education
Prof. LynNell Hancock
Mondays: 9:0 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Education is a primary beat in every American news outlet, from the small town paper to the local television station to the metropolitan news conglomerate. The federal No Child Left Behind Act has boosted this traditionally local issue into the national spotlight. It is a growing beat, desperate for writers and reporters with the skills and knowledge to tackle an increasingly complex landscape.

Covering Education is a new course designed to offer students a foundation for making sense of it all. One unique feature includes a partnership with a New York City public school complex housing five separate schools for pre-k through twelfth graders. Each student will intern in one these schools any half-day a week, learning about its every idiosyncrasy from boiler room to classroom. Seminar time will be devoted to providing the history of public education, examining a sampler of pressing issues confronting educators and children, and offering students basic tools required to assess the nation’s classrooms. Students should emerge at semester’s end able to cut through polemics and write compelling, clear stories on any topic in the area of urban affairs or social services. The course will link to resources at Teachers College Hechinger Institute on Media and Education, and will include intensive training in investigative, narrative, explanatory features, and journal writing.

Course web site: www.coveringeducation.org

The Julia Richman Education Complex, our partner school on Manhattan’s East Side: http://www.jrec.org/
East Brooklyn Congregations School for Law and Public Safety, partner school in Brooklyn: http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/StudentEnroll/HSAdmissions/HSDirectory/Book/?sid=883

Covering Religion
Prof. Ari Goldman
Monday, 9:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. (Note: Application class)
A special requirement of the course is an early deadline for the Master’s Project. Since the study tour to Ireland occurs during Spring Break, Projects must be
submitted to the Dean’s Office prior to our departure. (This requirement does not apply part-time students not currently enrolled in the Master’s Project.)

“Covering Religion” prepares journalists to write about religion for a secular audience. The course looks at major religions today through case studies of how religion is evolving in different parts of the world. This year the focus will be on Ireland. During the first seven weeks of the course, the class will report on all religions that are found both in New York and in Ireland. Each student is required to become the class expert on a specific faith or denomination, writing articles and sharing what he or she has learned with the class. The class also includes mandatory field trips to mosques, temples and churches in New York. During the spring break, the class takes a 12-day study tour of Ireland. (There is no cost to students for the study tour, which is fully subsidized by a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation.) During the study tour, the class maintains a web site where regular news and features reports are posted (www.coveringreligion.org). Special Requirements: Full time students must complete and submit their Master’s Project before spring break commences. Admission to the class is by application. For details, see the DOS blog.

Writing About the Arts
Claudia Roth Pierpont
Monday, 4 p.m. – 7 p.m.
The cultural reporter for a newspaper or magazine is required to draw on a wide knowledge of the arts, and to combine objective skills of description and investigation with the ability to muster a strong and well-argued opinion. This course will exercise all of these requirements through frequent writing assignments, and through close reading of model essays and articles. Students will receive detailed responses to their work from me and from the members of the class, and are expected to revise toward the goal of publication. An important part of the class will be the students’ critiques of one another’s work in weekly discussion.

The Deadline in Depth
Laura Muha
Monday, 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Deadlines can be stressful even for seasoned journalists. But being able to write accurately and well on a short lead time is an essential skill for any reporter — and one that provides a foundation for the more complex, time-intensive pieces that come later. This course teaches the ins and outs of deadline reporting by exposing students to the sorts of stories general assignment reporters cover on a daily basis: cops, courts, human interest features, breaking news. Often working side-by-side with their counterparts in the city press corps, students will learn how to get the information they need without going down time-wasting dead-ends, how to structure deadline stories, and how to write them compellingly - proving that graceful writing and tight deadlines don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Human Rights Reporting
Bill Berkeley
Tuesday, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
A seminar on the challenges of reporting about human rights abuses, at home and overseas. Summary executions, torture, detention without charge or trial, the suppression of free expression, wholesale genocide and state terror – these and other abuses have emerged over the last half century as paramount international concerns of our era. The attacks on September 11, 2001 and America’s response have brought some of these issues home to an unprecedented degree. How do journalists report on and write about human rights, and what are some of the practical and ethical challenges facing reporters who do?
In this seminar, we will examine the history of the human rights movement, study some particularly egregious instances of abuse, and learn about recent innovations in human rights law that seek to address bedrock problems of justice, accountability and deterrence. We will also focus on recent abuses associated with America’s counter-terrorism campaign, from prisoner abuse allegations in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to detention and deportation practices in our own country. We will read exemplary reporting and writing about human rights over the decades, and explore a range of strategies for investigating abuses, documenting their scale and conveying their horror.

New York City provides the field laboratory for the course, with resources and reporting opportunities including its huge community of immigrants from around the world; the major U.N. agencies and independent human rights advocacy groups; federal courts that hear human rights cases; and the home offices of transnational businesses that may bear responsibility for human rights abuses in the regions in which they operate. Students will report on both international rights abuses and problems in the New York region. The latter may include refugees seeking political asylum, migrants held indefinitely without trial on “secret evidence,” police tactics, racial profiling, prison overcrowding, the death penalty, sweatshop labor, and treatment for recovery from atrocities.
Required Work: Five reported articles, at least one of which must focus on a domestic problem, and two rewrites.
There will be two guest speakers: Carroll Bogert, Director of Communications for Human Rights Watch and a former Newsweek correspondent in Russia and China, and Tina Rosenberg, editorial writer for the New York Times and author of “The Haunted Land – Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism.”

Covering Race and Ethnicity with an Authentic Voice
Arlene Morgan and Alice Pifer
Tuesday, 1:00-3:30 p.m.This course will be based primarily on The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity a textbook, DVD and website composed of award-winning stories (eight print; seven television). All of the stories have been honored by the Let’s Do It Better Workshop on Journalism, Race and Ethnicity here at The Journalism School. We will integrate assignments with vibrant class discussions to educate you on what it takes to report and write with authority, complexity, context and voice about one of the most sensitive and challenging topics you’ll face as journalists. The course will also feature a guest list of speakers including journalists who have stories in The Authentic Voice as well as others who are experts in the field of race and ethnicity reporting. Associate Dean Arlene Notoro Morgan and Director of Professional Education Alice Irene Pifer, co-editors of The Authentic Voice, will teach the course. Morgan, a former assistant managing editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, will lead the newspaper discussions and Pifer, a former ABC News producer, will lead the broadcast lessons. Open to all concentrations.

International Affairs Reporting
Josh Friedman
Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. This course explores the joys and difficulties of covering news in other countries and cultures. Each student covers and writes frequently about an immigrant community in New York–or larger issues from the perspective of the country or region from which those immigrants come. Students get semester-long UN press credentials to facilitate this. Class discussion and guests focus on cultural and political differences that reporters encounter overseas. The emphasis is on how to break out of the bubble that seals off foreign journalists from the people they are covering. This is not a course about covering only diplomacy or international relations. There is a heavy practical component to the course with emphasis on reporting techniques, staying safe, logistics, selling free-lance pieces and functioning in other cultures. While the class meets in the evening, students should be prepared for occasional daytime assignments.

The Investigative Project (non-Stabile)
Walt Bogdanich
Tuesday, 5-8:00 p.m.
The mission, methods and history of investigative reporting, as seen in part through a semester-long project examining a single subject. The goal will be to break news exploring the underside of an overarching state or municipal issue and to expose in engaging detail “the effort required,” as Lincoln Steffens put it, “to make the world go wrong.” The class will include a mix of investigative lecturers–from reporters to law enforcement agents to private investigators–as well as government officials and other experts on the project theme.
The subjects of investigative stories will also discuss how reporters are handled at the receiving end. The purpose of the class will be to acquire investigative skills by using them in a team approach designed to have an impact on one of the city’s great, under-explored, issues.

The Journalism of Tomorrow
Prof. Stephen Isaacs
Tuesdays, 6-9 p.m.The only constant in journalism has become change. This seminar will examine in some depth how journalism and its practitioners are morphing into forms seemingly unrecognizable under historic definitions. From Day 1 of the seminar, students will “zero base” accepted thinking about journalism, such as whether it will exist in the future world.
Students will explore how new global forces and the speed of technological invention are affecting all aspects of societies, from politics to economics to cultures to ethics to morals and in reverse, and how those forces affect media and how media reflect them and affect them.
Each week, students will assess the current and likely impact of current and possible developments.
The first week will concentrate on the development of media by focusing on the origins of media by using Paul Starr’s provocative work, The Creation of the Media, as a touchstone. From there, week by week, the class will examine various political and social aspects of new and possible developments. One week, for example, students will focus on blogs, and whether blogging is a 10-second phenomenon, as many regard it, or the harbinger of a major political and journalistic revolution, using the book Blog by Hugh Hewitt as a starting place. Another week might concentrate on the whole subject of citizen involvement, taking off from Bowling Alone, the sociological staple Robert D. Putnam, and Dan Gillmor’s We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. In yet another week, we will examine the social and political phenomenon of information overload, using Todd Gitlin’s Media Unlimited as a guide. In as many cases as possible, we will invite the authors of these works to join in our discussions.
Students will write an essay every other week on one of the two topics covered in that two-week period. The minimum length will be 1,500 words.

National Affairs Reporting A: America’s Fault Lines
John Martin
Tuesday, 6:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
This course is designed to enhance the reporter’s ability to explore stories that touch on the fractures in American society between the educated and the unschooled, between the government and the citizen, and between social and economic classes. It examines four areas: Technology, Workplace, Crime, and National Security. It seeks to penetrate myths and report realities behind the following topics: The Digital Revolution: Divisive or Liberating? American Labor: Dead or Alive? Wrongful Convictions: The Search for Certainty, and the National Security State: America’s Wartime Atmosphere. Guest speakers will stimulate discussion and offer leads on sources and lines of inquiry. The course requires four reports of 1,000 to 1,200 words (over 15 weeks) to demonstrate reporting results and story telling abilities. Each story appears in Fault Lines, a digest of reporting, and is posted at Faultlines.com.
Note: You must be enrolled in one of the two National Affairs Reporting classes to be eligible to apply for this summer’s News 21 project. For details see http://newsinitiative.org/

National Affairs Reporting B
Prof. Richard Wald
Tuesday, 7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
The class will act as the New York Bureau of a national publication. We will explore what makes a report “national” through a three-hour meeting every Tuesday night, examination of major publications and discussions with invited reporters and editors who are in the business every day. There will be two field trips, one to Washington (a visit), one to Albany (you work). There will be regular writing assignments and in the final five sessions we will concentrate on secrecy in government and how it affects the press. We will be joined for these sessions by David Westin, president of ABC News, and specially invited guests. Reading: everything you can get your hands on. You have to know what is in the news, generate your own stories and be prepared to defend them. Won Ton soup served on last day of class.
Note: You must be enrolled in one of the two National Affairs Reporting classes to be eligible to apply for this summer’s News 21 project. For details see http://newsinitiative.org/

Covering Conflict
Judith Matloff
Tuesday, 2:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Covering conflict poses unique challenges to reporters and is arguable the trickiest from an ethical point of view. Your reporting could get someone killed – including yourself. This course will cover all areas of coverage from moral minefields to logistics. The aim is to prepare you to work responsibly when faced with a barrage of propaganda and bullets. Each student will “adopt” a crisis and track it throughout the semester. Although there will be a practical component to the course, we will focus on how to deepen reportage with context and robust questioning. One assignment will prepare you to parachute into a strange country. Four others will examine the implications of events or critique media coverage thereof. In addition, students will write proposals for story ideas. Guest speakers will include prominent war correspondents and editors.

Personal and Professional Style
Judith Crist
Tuesday, 1:30pm - 5pm (Note: Application class)
The nature and demands of this course make it necessary to limit the class size. It is offered to students who have mastered the basic mechanics and techniques of journalistic prose and are interested in developing and refining a personal literary style within a journalistic framework, appropriate to editorials, columns and reviews. There are basic assignments and free-choice exercises, with concentration on intra-group and self criticism, and good reporting. This class is not for the thin of skin.

Science Reporting
Steve Hall
Tuesday, 10am - 2pm
This course will instruct students on the art and craft of writing about science for a general audience. Students will learn how to extract information from the scientific literature, interview scientists, analyze the importance of newly reported research, report on scientific controversies, and unearth compelling human narratives from the mass of published scientific data. Particular emphasis will be placed on the importance of critical thinking in assessing and characterizing new scientific developments. In addition, there will be a significant emphasis on developing the kind of prose skills that are essential for the unique burdens of science writing, which include explanatory journalism and translating the social implications of technical information into the broader cultural idiom.

During the course of the term, students will be asked to write a general science news story, a medical story, a passage of descriptive science journalism, a profile, and a longer-format narrative piece. In addition, students will be asked to generate and develop a series of story ideas suitable for general publications. Readings will include recent scientific and journalistic dispatches from the fields of particle physics, global warming, behavioral genetics, neurobiology, and stem cell science, among others. The class will regularly meet with guest speakers from both broadcast and print realms, as well as scientists, and there will be at least one field trip—to a functional MRI laboratory engaged in research on human cognitive function and behavior.

Stabile Investigative Seminar - for Stabile students only
Prof. Sheila Coronel
Tuesday, 2:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Investigative journalism is becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated. No longer is it confined to reporting on corruption and uncovering scandal. The seminar will expose students to the variety of ways in which different subjects – ranging from politics to business, from the media to international affairs, from crime to race and social issues – can be investigated.

The class will study techniques for developing story ideas and pursuing investigations. It will examine the applicability of research methods from the social sciences to the work that investigative reporters do. The minefields that journalists encounter in the course of their research and reporting, including unreliable methods and sources, will also be discussed. Speakers, including investigative journalists, will be invited so share their experiences but so will experts and social scientists.
Students will dissect investigations conducted by both the print and broadcast media in the United States and elsewhere. During the term, the students will be divided into groups, each of which will undertake an investigative project. They will take turns critiquing and fact-checking each other’s work. Students’ projects will be mounted on the Web, so that they will learn how to present investigative reports in a multimedia format.

Business and Economic Reporting
Paul Ingrassia
Monday, 6:30 – 9 p.m.

The Workshops
J6011y (6 credits)
Please note: full-time students are expected to devote all day Thursday and Friday to working on their Workshop. The times listed below indicate only the group meetings of these courses.

I. Broadcast
The broadcast faculty offers four workshops for students choosing to concentrate in television or radio. Each of the workshops specializes in one discipline: radio, nightly news, reporting and producing for television magazines, and documentary production.

Documentary
Jon Alpert
Thursday, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
The Documentary Workshop presents an opportunity for a guided experience, supported by classmates and critiqued by professionals such as Sam Pollard (”When the Levees Broke”), Martin Smith (Frontline), and Judith Helfand (”Blue Vinyl”). Workshop members will learn the art of pitching to different networks and the craft of creating a scene; we will consider narrative structure and learn rudiments of running a documentary production company. We’re working in the journalistic tradition, but the form may be traditional, personal, or experimental. Pitches will be judged on demonstrated access to characters, feasibility, and social relevance. We encourage broadcast of the final product, and pitching to various broadcast outlets will be part of the class. Class will meet Thursday 6-9 but there will be additional sessions on various aspects of craft scheduled during some Saturdays. The class is open to print students who have taken broadcast skills. Those in the investigative program encouraged to join!

Nightly News
William Wheatley
Thursday 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Friday 8 a.m.-8 p.m.
Students will report, write, shoot and produce half-hour television news programs. Story lengths will vary from short hard news reports to in-depth “focus” stories, as well as series and profiles. All students will rotate through different jobs, which expose them to newsroom and studio operations. Editorial decision-making and production management are emphasized. Working under faculty supervision, students will design and implement program formats, write scripts, edit video, and anchor newscasts.

Radio
John Dinges
Thursday, 5 p.m. - 7 p.m., Friday 9 a.m.- 7 p.m. (No pre-requisites)
Students will employ advanced radio writing and production techniques in a variety of radio formats to produce a weekly radio news magazine. The course will emphasize fully reported, radio news and magazine reports such as those featured most commonly on NPR programs. The class will function as a production team to produce a weekly radio news magazine, Uptown Radio, webcast live on the internet. Students will learn the full range of techniques of radio reporting, writing and on-air production, including newscasts, spot news, reports in the 3-4 minute range, creative commentary and longer narrative pieces using documentary methods. The course is intended to provide mastery of the most important skills needed in a high quality radio news organization. It is also designed to develop your writing skills (irrespective of media) by emphasizing descriptive writing, narrative and scene building techniques, and long-form documentary techniques. There are no technical or broadcast pre-requisites for this course and it is open to students from broadcast and print RW1 sections.

Television News Magazines
Prof. Betsy West
Thursday 6 p.m.-9 p.m.This workshop will focus on the fundamentals of narrative, non-fiction storytelling for visual media. Students will work in rotating teams of two to report and produce stories in a variety of styles and lengths suitable for broadcast, cable and new media. Investigative reports, feature stories and profiles are encouraged, with the emphasis on substantive reporting and compelling storytelling.

Seminars will feature experienced producers and reporters from
60 Minutes, 20/20, CNBC’s Business Nation, Nightline, msnbc.com, and PBS’s Expose, as well as independent production companies. Topics will include story structure, writing to picture, interview techniques, shooting, editing, graphics, legal issues and pitching your stories and yourself to media outlets. At the end of the semester, students will produce and direct a magazine-style program.

II. Magazine

Literary Journalism
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Friday, 10am – 1pm
This workshop combines long-form writing and reporting with the study of excellent stylists, both journalists who have reached beyond conventional news style to make their writing as compelling and graceful as that of the best novelists (such as Ryszard Kapusckinski, John McPhee, Jane Kramer, Joan Didion) and novelists whose work contains significant journalistic elements (such as Tolstoy, Upton Sinclair, Emile Zola, Charles Dickens). Students read and analyze these writers, then do a few short writing exercises and one long article attempting to emulate the best stylists in the field. The idea is to practice the long-form style of journalism used in books and magazine articles.

Magazine Writing A
John Bennet
Monday, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.Note: This is a Workshop, but it meets Monday evenings. Before signing up for this section, you must check to be certain there will be no schedule conflict with your Seminar. Your reporting days for this Workshop will be Thursday and Friday, with Monday and Tuesday reserved for working on your Seminar.
Why do so many journalists with secure jobs at daily newspapers secretly long for the supposed glamour, uncertainty, and financial precariousness of magazine work? Often, it’s because they think they’ll finally free themselves from the rigid conventions of newspaper syntax — newspaperese — and find their real voices as writers. What they usually discover is that magazine writing, too, has its conventions, and these can be, in their own way, just as restrictive and bewildering. In this course, we’ll quickly examine various genres–women’s magazines, men’s magazines, entertainment magazines, niche magazines, ideological magazines? in a session or two and then move on to our real subject: writing for substantive general-interest publications like Harper’s, The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times Magazine. We’ll discuss the types of proposals that appeal to editors, ways of getting in the door, and some useful frameworks for structuring longer magazine pieces. We’ll work on developing or refining a more natural and conversational writing style. In addition to weekly assignments involving the study of individual magazines and assigned readings, the student will produce a suitable magazine article of 2,500 to 3,000 words.

Magazine Writing B
Stephen Fried
Thursday, 3 p.m.-6 p.m.
A magazine story is not just a longer newspaper story. It requires an entirely different approach to story selection, to reporting and interviewing, to writing and re-writing, and to maintaining one’s journalistic mental health. This class will help you embrace those differences by giving you the tools to dig deeper into stories than you ever have before–as a reporter and a narrative writer. It will also explore how magazines work, how magazine projects come to be, how magazine writers and editors (and sources) survive the longform process, and how the market for longform non-fiction is mutating.
This workshop is best suited for students who already know they plan to pursue magazine and alt-weekly writing (or editing) for a career directly after J-school. It is also pretty rigorous, with writing, reporting and editing assignments pretty much every week. So, as my former students will tell you, this is not a workshop for dabblers or tourists.
In each weekly session we examine one aspect of magazine writing from a variety of perspectives, and analyze one current issue of a magazine. But our primary focus is on your work, to help you understand and explore magazine writing for yourself–in an intense, hands-on workshop setting where pretty much every word you write is not only edited by me, but by at least three of your classmates. Each student will develop five magazine story ideas, which will be workshopped until one executable story is chosen. (It’s never a bad idea to come to the first class with some ideas already at least half-baked.) At the same time you’ll work on a short profile to develop basic magazine writing skills. But the main enterprise of the workshop is an originally-reported (and endlessly re-reported) magazine piece of at least 3500 words, written (and re-written) with a handful of specific publications in mind. We finish the semester talking about how you might get the piece published–but, more important, how it might help you get a job at a magazine or alt-weekly so you can get paid to write more pieces.
Many have described this workshop as tantamount to doing a second masters. Some thought ultimately that was a good thing … others, not so much. But, for students truly interested in careers in long form narrative writing, it could be a challenge worth taking.

Magazine Writing C
Cathleen McGuigan
Thursday, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
In this course, we will explore the magazine story and how it differs from a newspaper story, both in its richly-detailed reporting and in the style and structure of its writing. Starting with the basic elements of magazine stories, the class will explore the use of scenes, anecdotes and color and the development of a personal writer’s voice. Through readings of both contemporary and classic magazine pieces, we will analyze various writers’ techniques. In the first half of the term, students will produce several short pieces; the second half of the term will be devoted to a deeply reported 3000-word piece. In addition to the readings and writing assignments, we will examine a different type of magazine each week and discuss the practical aspects of breaking into magazines and getting stories published.

Producing a Magazine A
Prof. Victor Navasky
Thursday, 3 p.m. – 6 p.m.This workshop will produce an issue of The New York Review of Magazines (TNYRM). The purpose of TNYRM , past copies of which are available in the library and the 8th floor computer lab, is to describe, analyze, and evaluate the world of magazines — the world many of you are about to enter (and some of you already inhabit.) Students will determine the theme, if any, of this issue. Students will write, edit, fact-check and generally take part in all aspects of this publication. We will also publish a companion on-line version of TNYRM. If you are interested in applying you should send a letter (no longer than a page and a half) setting forth at least three story ideas for the magazine, and also any special expertise or interest you have re: working online, working on the magazine, photography, copy-editing, production, working on a business plan, etc.

Producing a Magazine B
Jim Kelly
Friday, 2:30-5:30 p.m. The class will, over the course of the semester, produce a prototype magazine. Students will write, edit, copy-edit, fact-check, in short perform all the editorial functions of a magazine staff. They will work individually and in teams, devising departments, assigning stories, gathering art.

III. New Media

New Media A – Multimedia Production and Visual Storytelling
Duy Linh Tu and Carla Baranaukas
Thursday, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. and most Fridays 10 a.m. -5 p.m.
The Multimedia Production & Visual Storytelling Workshop combines traditional reporting and writing skills with the best of multimedia journalism. Students will learn to report and create stories using multimedia software, hardware, and theory. The focus of the class is the NYC24 project — a Web magazine read in more than 75 countries. Workshop students will expand NYC24 and report and produce several stories over the course of the semester. The class meets in formal training sessions on Thursday evenings and, on many weeks, several hours on Friday. In addition, reporting will be required on a weekday or weekend day. Leading experts from the editorial and business sides of the media serve as guest speakers and provide feedback and direction for projects. Please see nyc24.com to see the work of previous classes. Priority for enrollment will be given first to new media majors who have taken New Media Newsroom, followed by non-majors who have taken New Media Newsroom. If there are still open slots, other students will be considered.

Format: Students will work in teams of two to produce multimedia packages, including short-form video documentaries, slideshows, and interactive Flash packages — all based on solid reporting and writing. Students will publish five issues of NYC24 throughout the semester (including a major, multi-week
final project), and each student will have the opportunity to serve on the editorial board of one of the issues.

Multimedia Skills Taught:
Pitching Story Ideas
Writing for the Web
Advanced Video Production
Advanced Video Editing Techniques (Final Cut Pro)
Information Architecture and Web Design
Interactive Flash Design and Production
Audio Production and Editing
Advanced Photoshop

Additional Skills Taught:
Brightcove Storymaker
Setting up a Podcast for iTunes Distribution
Various Web 2.0 technologies

New Media B – Interactive Media Storytelling
Adam Glenn and Russell Chun
Thursday, 6:00-9:00, Friday as needed
The Interactive Storytelling Workshop combines traditional reporting and writing skills with the best of interactive digital media storytelling techniques. Students will learn to report and create stories using interactive software, hardware, and theory, with a focus on exploring non-traditional and innovative ways of presenting content. The class meets in formal training sessions on Thursday evenings and, on many weeks, several hours on Friday. In addition, reporting will be required on a weekday or weekend day. Leading experts from the editorial and business sides of the media serve as guest speakers and provide feedback and direction for projects. Priority for enrollment will be given first to new media majors who have taken New Media Newsroom, followed by non-majors who have taken New Media Newsroom. If there are still open slots, other students will be considered. This course assumes the incoming student has a working knowledge of audio and video recording and editing, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and web map technologies such as Google maps.

FORMAT: Students will work in teams of two to produce media-rich packages, including (but not limited to) audio slideshows, infographics, timelines, quizzes, blogs, database mashups and Flash interactives — all based on solid reporting and writing. Students will publish several issues of a webzine throughout the semester (including a major, multi-week final project), and each student will have the opportunity to serve on the editorial board of one of the issues.

Interactive Media Skills Taught:
Developing & Pitching Web Story Ideas
Writing for the Web - The Fractured Narrative
Web Design and Usability
Mastering Interactive Graphic Tools
Using Flash for Interactive Design and Production
Advanced Flash
Using Database/Mapping Mashup Tools
Understanding Information Architecture and Data Design
Advanced Photoshop

Additional Skills Taught:
Using Blogging Software & Leveraging the Online Community
Brightcove Storymaker
Setting up a Podcast
Various Web 2.0 technologies

IV. NewspaperThese two-day workshops involve instruction and experience in editorial aspects of a newspaper operation: planning and editing, reporting and writing, and photography. All work is done under close supervision of faculty instructors.

The Bronx Beat
Prof. Addie Rimmer
Thursday, Friday 9 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Saturday (for editors) 8:00 a.m. -2:00 p.m.
The Bronx Beat is a student-written, student-run weekly newspaper and Web site covering the people, issues and happenings of the city’s northernmost borough. Assisted by a team of adjuncts from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and other dailies, the staff produces as many as 10 issues during the course of the spring semester covering topics from schools to sports to samba.

This is a class for self-starting journalists. Two students are chosen to serve as the co-editors-in-chief for two consecutive issues. Student writers pitch stories each week to these editors, who maintain a story budget, manage deadlines and steer the content of the paper.

Working in rotating teams with professional editors, students copy edit and design the paper’s layout on deadline. Students produce as many as 10 stories in the semester, and have the opportunity to direct a story’s accompanying art and layout in each issue.

In addition to a circulation in the Bronx of 6,000, The Bronx Beat is also widely circulated to the editors of the city’s weeklies and dailies.

NOTE: This year, for the first time, The Bronx Beat workshop, will have a new media adjunct as part of the adjunct pool. This adjunct will be responsible for reimagining the respective sites and working with any students interested in designing and reporting for the web - in addition to newspaper. New Media majors and print majors who took New Media Newsroom in Fall 2007 will be eligible to apply for a spot in these courses. They will be part of the regular class, but will pay special attention to the website, under the supervision of the new media adjunct. They will be expected to deliver set of required reporting/editing/production assignments and to work closely with their classmates and other professors. Details on how to apply for these spots will be circulated at the Spring preview and on the ballot.

Columbia News Service
Bruce Porter
Thursday 6-8:30 p.m.Weekly editing sessions are held with adjuncts on either Thursday, Friday or Saturday. ENROLLMENT LIMITED TO 50.
The Columbia News Service operates as a feature syndicate whose stories are thought up, reported and written by students under the guidance of faculty members. The best ones are displayed on the school’s web site and also distributed by the New York Times News Service for publication in some 400 daily newspapers throughout the United States and Canada. Topics concern anything of general interest happening in and around New York City. Subject matter can deal with the arts, entertainment, science, technology, health/fitness, sports, publishing, economics, fashion, ideas, travel, politics, academia, business, government—anything that would intrigue and inform a national audience. To see examples of what students produced last year, take a look at the CNS stories listed under Student Work on the school’s website.
Along with receiving instruction and practice in how to report and write feature stories, students will learn how to develop ideas, present them to editors in acceptable fashion and deal professionally with editors as staff writers and freelancers. Students must turn out six stories of 750 to 1500 words each in the course of the semester, writing and rewriting them, working one-to-one with their own instructor, until their pieces reach publishable quality.

The ElectivesJ6010y (3 credits)
All courses below count for 3 academic credits. Students who wish to take a 6000-level-or-higher graduate elective offered elsewhere in the University that is given on a day other than Wednesdays may be able to work that in, but only with the prior agreement of the seminar and/or workshop instructor(s). Journalism students may audit courses or specific meetings of courses with the permission of the instructor(s). Please see http://snipurl.com/1tn6z for details.
Note: The school reserves the right to cancel any elective with fewer than 8 students enrolled.

Advanced Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR)
Tom Torok
Wednesday 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Advanced Computer-assisted Reporting. Students will learn advanced techniques to manage, integrate and analyze complex and dissimilar sets of electronic information to produce compelling journalistic projects. The class will focus on ways to reliably work with longitudinal data that change in structure and quality over time to examine a contemporary social issue. Students also will pursue a topic of choice. Past classes have concentrated on hate crimes in New York and on the effects of a Supreme Court decision on academic performance in public schools. Classes also have worked in conjunction with graphics classes to look at ways to help present complicated information in an easy-to-understand visual ways.
Students can expect to work two to three hours a week outside of class, although students may voluntarily spend more time while pursuing projects of their own. Because it is difficult to complete some journalistic projects within the span of a semester, emphasis will be on the project process rather than on a finished product.

Advanced Photojournalism
Sara Barrett
Wednesday 9:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m.
A course for aspiring photojournalists and for students who wish to include photography among their reportorial skills. Students will gain experience by shooting news and feature stories, and will develop individual photo essays. This class addresses both the technical aspects of photography and the practical and ethical issues faced by the working photojournalist. Visiting photographers and photo editors will show and critique work. Note: This course is open only to students who have completed “Photo Skills” or by permission on the instructor.

Broadcast News Management
David McCormick and Lloyd Siegel
Wednesday, 7p.m. - 9p.m.
This course will focus on the challenges and opportunities facing broadcast managers and reporters in the digital age: multiple platforms, rapidly changing technology, and an increasingly fractionalized audience and advertising market. It will address issues of newsroom organization, content development, budgeting, and standards in terms of a new multimedia 24-hour environment.

The objective is to develop a new model for television news, with revised procedures and policies to operate on the air, on cable, the Internet, and other digital platforms simultaneously in a creative and cost effective way. The course will include case studies, real world decision-making, and guest lecturers from broadcast and digital organizations.

Feature Writing A
Alexandra Peers
Wednesday, 3-5:00 p.m.
The class aims to acquaint the student with the fundamentals and challenges of feature writing and, beyond that, to serve as an intensely practical, modern look at the current climate for such writing. Students will work on developing a “voice,” will learn sourcing and interviewing strategies and will discuss current publishing industry issues with professionals working at newspapers and magazines. Particular attention will be paid to the specific stylistic elements that distinguish feature writing from news reporting, and to developing the characters, atmosphere and breadth of features.

Feature Writing B
Hugh Eakin
Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
The course will seek to arrive at a sophisticated understanding of feature style and technique, by scrutinizing both the mechanics of the reporting and writing process as well as the ways in which this challenging genre is deployed in short- and medium-form journalism. Through weekly readings and discussion, we will learn to define and identify the qualities that distinguish good feature writing, including topicality, structure, characters, narrative tension, and concision. We will work to develop these qualities in a series of written assignments, including two or more 1000- to 1500- word articles, that aim to assemble reported material into engaging and polished prose narratives. The course will emphasize quality over quantity, and students will be expected to produce at least one article that is worthy of publication in the national press by the end of term.

Graphics in the Newsroom
Hannah Fairfield Wallander
Wednesday, 7:10 p.m. – 9:10 p.m.
Information graphics are now a vital part of newspaper and magazine reporting. Readers are more visually savvy than ever before, and newsrooms are responding. Election coverage, national and international affairs, science, sports, and business news all depend on infographics to attract and inform readers. Reporters with experience in information graphics have an advantage when seeking jobs and pitching stories because they can offer story packages rather than words alone. A story with an excellent graphic will frequently edge out other stories for page one. This course will teach you, as reporters and editors, to approach a story as a visual journalist.

The International Newsroom
Prof. Ann Cooper
Wednesdays, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
What is news? And how is it reported? The answers change as you cross borders and cultures, and in this course we will compare the differences by analyzing news coverage around the globe.

The course will cover three major areas:

Global news. Students will monitor news Web sites around the world, and guest speakers, including foreign editors and foreign correspondents, will help us analyze the coverage. We will also meet several journalists from other countries, who will discuss geography, culture, media ownership, ethics, and other influences that affect their work in defining and reporting the news.

Press freedom. We’ll look at the origins of the concept of free expression as a basic human right. Tracing that idea up to the present, we will examine the techniques used in dozens of countries to repress independent reporting and critical opinion.

International reporting. Students will develop analytical and reporting skills in covering international news. We will discuss sources and techniques for reporting everything from diplomacy at the United Nations to war in Iraq. Guests will discuss careers in international reporting and how to freelance international stories. We will also examine some innovative approaches to international reporting, such as Swarthmore College’s War News Radio project and Yahoo’s In the Hot Zone site.

Students will develop their own story ideas on international issues, based on readings and discussions. Assignments for this class can be written for print, radio, or television. We will also discuss the possibility of a multimedia class project on one international issue. In Spring 2006, The International Newsroom class produced a multimedia Web site on issues relating to the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. To see that work, go to iraqfouryearslater.com.

Magazine Editing
Elizabeth Pochoda
Wednesday, 3 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Many journalists want to write for magazines. Some consider becoming editors. Still others think about starting their own. For all these students, this course will analyze how magazines are made — from the creation of an editorial vision to what an editor does day by day. Aspects of business and production will also be addressed. For a required final project, each student will choose a magazine to report on, applying the course contents to assess the publication’s strengths and weaknesses.

Narrative Writing A
Kevin Coyne
Wednesday, 7 p.m. - 9 p.m.
All of the best stories in journalism, whether as short as a column or as long as a book, share the same basic narrative principles, and the aim of this course is to master those principles, to study them in the work of others, and to apply them to your own. The first few sessions are spent in an overview of the narrative form, discussing how to recognize, report, structure and write stories that move confidently through time, place and character. The remaining weeks proceed through a series of more specific technical issues using dialogue, choosing and depicting characters, compressing and expanding time, managing transitions, providing historical context, establishing a voice. Beyond the regular readings, the main requirement is to find one good story idea and then write it at three lengths (column, feature, magazine), gradually working your way deeper into the narrative form as the semester progresses.

Narrative Writing B
Jacob Levenson
Wednesday, 9 a.m. - 11 a.m.
Narrative journalism has joined literary technique with the authority of nonfiction to illuminate social inquiries with unequaled force and economy. The genre at once represents the maturation of the most ambitious 20th Century American journalism and promises to reinvent the role of the journalist as public thinker. To that end, this course has two principle aims. The first is to master the core techniques of narrative, including character, theme, structure, tone, and the compression and fracture of time with the purpose of breaking intellectual news. The second is to engage in a semester long examination of the vision and consequence of this still new genre. Guests will include leading nonfiction authors, who will conduct master classes in the principle forms of narrative journalism. The main requirement will be to choose a field of inquiry and then recast it as a story in three narrative pieces, one of which will be expanded into a final project.

New Media Elective
Profs Jennifer Brown & Prof. Jennifer Johnson
Wednesday, 9:00-11:00 a.m.
The Web plays a role in just about every aspect of journalism today, and those with exposure to online storytelling have a tremendous competitive advantage in the marketplace. The New Media Elective is designed to give newspaper, magazine and broadcast concentrators a basic understanding of the current trends in online news, as well as build their new media skill set. They will learn to think critically and creatively about interactive storytelling and improve their knowledge of online communities and ways to incorporate community into traditional reporting. They will also learn basic proficiency in multimedia software. Students will put theory and skills into practice by transforming a traditional print or video piece from the first or second semester into an engaging online presentation.
They will also build an online resume and portfolio.

Students who take this course should not take New Media Skills in the Spring (no problem if you have taken it in the Fall). Not open to New Media majors.

News Editing
Nancy Sharkey
Wednesday, 5-7:00 p.m.
Despite predictions of an Internet-wrought demise, newspaper editing survives. In fact, good editing prospers as information proliferates. Editors sort the fact from the fallacious. They shape the tone and choose the content of their publications. They collaborate with reporters to help reporters achieve their best work (or they should, anyway). This course will cover the art of editing, from shaping breaking news to gently handling features written with voice and style. It will look at relationships between reporters and editors. It will examine tough decisions of news judgment. And it will explore choices in organization and style. The course is intended not only for students considering a career in editing, but also for reporters who want to become better self-editors.

Opinion Writing
Gwenda Blair
Wednesday 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Despite the tidal wave of opinion available in print, on the Internet, and on talk radio, it often seems that rather than becoming more substantive and engaging, the public debate has simply become louder. In this course, we will combine a look at the role of opinion in contemporary society with a workshop in opinion journalism that emphasizes critical thinking and structured argument. In addition to reading and discussing a wide variety of published opinion pieces, we’ll visit a taping of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and talk with guest speakers about their work (past guests have included New York Times’ columnists Frank Rich, Gail Collins, and Jim Dwyer; New Yorker film critic David Denby; Wall Street Journal editorial writer Jason Riley; Time Asia columnist Sin-ming Shaw; Alternet blog editor Adam Howard; City Journal writer Sol Stern; Spike columnist George Blecher; opinion writers Tamar Jacoby and Judith Levine; public-policy specialist Ernest Tollerson; public radio host Marty Goldensohn). We’ll also discuss practical tips for building and presenting a point of view, and we’ll consider the pluses and minuses of first-person writing. There will be 6 or 7 writing assignments, which will be drawn from social, political, and cultural events of the day. All work will receive a written critique from the instructor and will be discussed in class. Revisions will be required.

Politics and the Press in America
Evan Cornog
Wednesday, 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
This course examines the press’s role in American politics from the eighteenth century to the present. Both “press” and “politics” are broadly defined. While parts of the course will look at newspaper coverage of political campaigns, the course will also consider the role of political pamphlets in bringing about the American Revolution, how reform groups (such as the abolitionists) have used the press to advance their agendas, and how efforts in various media–the cartoons of Thomas Nast, the radio broadcasts of F.D.R. and Father Coughlin, the Kennedy-Nixon TV debates–have altered American politics. Among the subjects the course will consider Thomas Jefferson and the press, muckraking, yellow journalism and the Spanish-American War, McCarthyism, Vietnam, and the modern political scandal from Watergate to the Starr Report.

Radio Documentary
Alex Blumberg
Wednesday, 7 p.m. – 10 p.m.
Alex Blumberg, a producer on the public radio program This American Life, teaches the art and techniques of documentary radio journalism - interviewing, ambient sound collection, scene-setting, and narrative. Frequent guest lectures and discussions will focus on stylistic and ethical issues. The goal of this course if for students to develop the skills and sensibility for documentary storytelling.
Students will produce three radio projects: a one-voice story (4 to 5 minutes) a multiple voice story (4 to 5 minutes) and a final documentary (8 - 12 minutes.) Through frequent rewrites and intensive editing, these documentaries should be well-crafted and professional enough for broadcast.
Note: This course is open only to students who have completed “Radio Skills.”

Sports Journalism
Sandy Padwe
Wednesday, 6:15 p.m. - 8:45 p.m.
Sports occupies a special place in American society. Television props up its financial investment by giving sporting events–professional, college and high school–staggering blocks of time every day; many newspapers keep readers by devoting huge percentages of their daily newsholes to local, national and international coverage. Sports talk radio and countless internet sites dissect every play, every individual and every move, often adding to the stifling pressure on athletes, coaches, owners and administrators. Sport has evolved into a complex part of American life that requires thinking, well-trained, well-read and fundamentally sound journalists.
A sports journalist must be able to quickly and clearly tell readers and viewers what is happening on the field, on the court or on the track, and the modern sports journalist must have a solid background on issues as diverse as labor, medicine, performance enhancing drugs, stadium financing, race, Title IX, gender, masculinity, hip hop culture, youth sports–and the daily police blotter. A sports journalist must understand the fascinating history of this world as well as all the emerging trends and must continue the tradition of adding to some of the best writing, reporting and commentary in journalism. This course will address all of these matters with coverage of local professional and college games; feature pieces; columns, as well as longer, issue-oriented takeouts and investigative stories dictated by the news.

Stabile Investigative Techniques
J. Robert Port
Monday, 10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
This course will be integrally connected to the work the Stabile Investigative Students are doing in the Investigative Seminar with Professor Coronel.
The methods of the investigative reporter are changing, requiring a mix of high tech records research, old-fashioned shoe leather and sharp instinct for recognizing corruption, conflict of interest or hypocrisy. This course will equip students with that mix of skills. They will learn how to find and describe the residence of any person from computer records, how to document business affiliations, pinpoint useful material in complex lawsuits and extract investigative leads or evidence from government data kept on such subjects as terrorism, industrial safety, child abuse, tax-exempt charities, campaign contributors, corporate executives and convicted felons. Using court records, developing sources and record-keeping will be discussed. Skepticism, factual accuracy and teamwork will be stressed. The instructor will guide students through three investigative exercises and one final investigative project to be published in a local newspaper.

Tough Choices: Decision-Making In Journalism
Prof. Michael Shapiro
Wednesday, 2:30-4:30 p.m.
Someone – an editor, a station manager – is going to be making decisions for you very soon. You may not like them. You may not respect them. You may wish you were making those decisions yourself. And someday you might. It may happen sooner than you think – or want. Or it may not happen at all.

But the world in which you will work is changing so rapidly that no one can honestly tell you what things will be like in three years, or five. But if you are going to succeed – and if you are going to be happy – it is imperative that you understand how decisions are made, and not just the wise ones. The decisions about what to cover, how to cover it, what to ignore, what to change, what to discard and what to embrace can no longer be the default decision that screams: “how did we cover it last year?”

People around you are going to be deciding whether to post the name of a famous athlete accused of sexual misconduct before they know his side of the story? Do you post it, hoping to be first with the story? Or do you wait, and risk being beaten?

So too will they be deciding whether a reporter covering a trial should also be blogging from the courtroom – adding a different, and perhaps opinionated voice to the neutral tone of her dispatches. Do you blog? Or do you say no?

These are the kinds of real-life decisions that you will confront in Decision Making in Journalism, a three-credit elective being offered for the first time this spring. The class uses the “case-method” of instruction to take students through the step-by-step of decisions involving real journalists, in real newsrooms, making decisions that they might, in hindsight, applaud or regret.

The approach puts students in the position of making those decisions, and debating their wisdom.

This class is not limited, or intended only for those who want to be in charge. It is, rather, for everyone who wants to feel a part of the sea change taking place across our field – and not merely onlookers to thinking that may be old, familiar, right or wrong.

History of American Journalism
Prof. Andie Tucher
Wednesday, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
The cultural and social history of journalism in America. Drawing on interpretive readings as well as plentiful historical examples of print and broadcast journalism – from Tom Paine to Tom Wolfe, from the war correspondent to the “Sabbath gasbag,” from the tabloid to the documentary, from the muckraker to the blogger – we explore the development of the values, practices, ethical standards and social roles that cluster around the institution of journalism. Topics include changing ideas about what “news” is and what a “journalist” does; the impact of new technologies for gathering news; popular expectations about the duties and uses of the press; and the evolution of standards for what makes “good journalism.” We also consider how the press has itself been a significant actor (for better or worse) in war, reform movements, political exercises, criminal trials and other events.

Covering Ideas
Prof. Alexander Stille
Wednesday, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Several newspapers and magazines have established an “ideas” beat in recent years, in which they try to look beyond the news and try to identify trends in the changing way we think about the world. At The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell (“The Tipping Point”) and James Surowiecki (“The Wisdom of Crowds”) have deftly combined social science research and journalism into a highly successful mix while the economist Steven Levitt, with “Freakonomics” has begun a major trend of social scientists eager to reach mass audiences. The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times have all experimented with ways of building ideas coverage into their papers on a regular basis and columnists like David Brooks routinely rummage through the world of social science to animate and give substance to their work.

Along with helping students to report and write a good ideas piece, the course will hopefully also teach them a way of thinking about stories in general: a way of looking under the surface of events and seeing for some larger cultural force at work. For instance, a story on Rudolph Giuliani’s record as a crime-busting mayor can turn into a story about various theories on what caused crime to drop in the 1990’s. A story on the recent book “The Israel Lobby” could try to define the line between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. A tabloid human interest story – a Harlem resident jumping on the subway tracks to save a young, white epileptic boy – could prompt you to explore what science can tell us about whether people are “naturally” prone to be altruistic or not. The world of 24-7 cable TV coverage has meant that print journalism (or its on-line incarnations) are looking increasingly for creative analysis as a way of giving value to their work and distinguishing it from the seemingly endless stream of mere information.

Ideas pieces can range widely in subject matter from literature and popular culture to science, economics and politics.

Twentieth Century Politics, Revolution and Literary Journalism
Prof. Michael Janeway
Wednesday 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
World War 1, the rise of totalitarianism, the specter of democratic collapse, and the devastating economic depression in the 1930s culminating in World War II were at once determining influences and central subjects of the art and culture of the past 80 years. In recent years, with crises in cultural values and outright war between secular and theocratic societies, we see anew the urgency of such issues and the fresh relevance of writers who first grappled with them in the 20th Century.

In this course we will explore the critical journalism and essays of mid- and late-20th Century writers including Mary McCarthy, Murray Kempton, Ralph Ellison, Pauline Kael, Susan Sontag, George Steiner, Hannah Arendt, Norman Mailer, Ellen Willis, Tom Wolfe, Garry Wills, Henry Louis Gates, John Didion, Janet Malcolm, Joyce Carol Oates, Dave Hickey and others. We will focus in particular on how critics think about the tension in their work between political imperatives and aesthetic ones; between factual authority and passion; and about voice. We will ask how beginning writers can usefully think about criticism, usually the preserve of highly accomplished writers. We will discuss ways that journalistic critics think about their roles, responsibilities, freedoms and limits.

Readings will display the critic in various modes – reporter, ideologue, aesthete, historian, artist, craftsman, crank – and examine ways that larger themes, occasions, and subtexts stretch and test critical forms. Through the Columbia “Courseworks” system, we’ll also look at some of the filmed works of art and events in history that the readings cover – including Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane”, the U.S. Senate’s hearings investigating charges of communism in government by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the work of Bill T. Jones, and Vietnam war coverage, and post-Vietnam film-making.

Assignments: two 1000-word exercises, one 1500-word paper, one 2000-word paper. The final paper will ask students to undertake independent reporting or research.

Note: Students who wish to apply for one of the 9 Writing Division places in this 18- student interdepartmental course offered jointly in Journalism and the School of the Arts Writing Division should submit a one-page sample of their critical writing to Professor Janeway at mj153@columbia.edu.

Skills
J6102y (1 credit)
Each student must take at least one Journalism Skills 5-week mini-course while enrolled. Students may try to add an additional skills course; however, placement is not guaranteed. The “Skills” mini-courses cannot be used as a substitute for the electives.

Television News Production
Saturday, 10:00am-12:30pm
Dates: 4/5; 4/12; 4/19; 4/26; 5/3
Non-broadcast majors get an introduction to video journalism and explore the editorial and production processes of TV. The course includes screenings, discussion sessions and exercises. Note: not open to broadcast concentrators, who receive television skills training in RWI

New Media
Saturday, 10:00am-12:30pm or 1:00pm-3:00pm
Dates: 4/5; 4/12; 4/19; 4/26; 5/3
This course is designed to give student an overview of how to create content for the Web and other delivery platforms such as portable devices, and introduce them to Web-based production environments similar to those used in their future news rooms. Each student will create a personal Web site using open source tools. While creating them, they will learn how Web sites actually work, how digital content works, what formats to produce audio, video and images in, and what protocols and languages are used in what is commonly referred to as Web 2.0. The personal Web sites created during the course will be theirs to use, augment, improve upon and showcase using newfound skills and the reporting they carry out throughout the school year.

Photojournalism
Saturday, 10:00am-12:30pm or 1:00pm-3:00pm
Dates: 4/5; 4/12; 4/19; 4/26; 5/3
Students learn the basics of photography, using Photoshop, scanners and printers to produce short photo essays on non-fiction topics.

Concentrations
The school offers five different concentrations - Broadcasting, Magazine, New Media, Newspaper, and Health, Science and Environment.

Broadcast
Coordinator: Ann Cooper
Students who concentrate in Broadcast take the radio or one of the television workshops in the spring.

Health, Science and Environment
Coordinator: Jonathan Weiner
Students take the Science Reporting seminar in the spring.

Magazine Journalism
Coordinator: Victor Navasky
Magazine journalism courses are offered through the George T. Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism. Students who major in magazine journalism must take one of the magazine workshops offered in the spring.
Spring courses offered under the auspices of the Delacorte Center include Magazine Writing, Magazine Editing, Advanced Photojournalism, Literary Journalism, and Producing a Magazine.

New Media
Coordinator: Sreenath Sreenivasan
Students wishing to concentrate in new media take the workshop in New Media.

Newspaper
Coordinator: Bruce Porter
Students take a Newspaper Workshop, either Bronx Beat or Columbia News Service.

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